Recurring 'Dreams'

Amid acrimony and rock 'n' roll, Kevin Costner returns to the cornfield he made famous

August 14, 2006|By Mark Caro, Tribune entertainment reporter

DYERSVILLE, Iowa — If you screen it, they will come.

If Kevin Costner shows up with his new band, even more will come.

And if the owners of the infield and outfield still aren't getting along, some folks will get turned away.

Friday night marked the first time that "Field of Dreams" was screened on the actual Field of Dreams, or at least part of it. It also was the first time that Costner, the star of Phil Alden Robinson's 1989 baseball-with-pixie-dust heartwarmer, had returned to the famous film location/tourist attraction where a baseball field was carved out of two farmers' cornfields.

The occasion was the Rolling Roadshow, a 10-city tour of classic films being shown for free where they were shot. The previous night, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" was projected in Northbrook to an estimated audience of 1,000, with no movie stars on hand. At least 5,000 fans were thought to be at the event in Dyersville, a town of 4,000 -- and that was before the fire department declared the site at capacity and security guards turned away what they said were a few hundred stragglers.

The attendees were camped out elbow to elbow on lawn chairs and blankets in left and center fields, the area officially known as Left & Center Field of Dreams. This is the farmland owned by the Ameskamp family and now operated by a hired manager as a tourist attraction, complete with a gift shop.

The music stage was erected in left-center field, backing into the corn, and a drive-in-worthy screen stood just to its right in straightaway center -- yet no one could sit to the right of the screen. Right field, the infield and the area around the white farmhouse, where the movie's family lived, were empty, and red ropes and barricades ran from third base to second base and up through the outfield to make sure no one crossed onto the property.

This is the land owned by the Lansing family and operated by the family as a tourist attraction, complete with a gift shop, as the Field of Dreams Movie Site. The two competing sites have been famously at odds for years.

The Rolling Roadshow approached both sides. Left & Center said yes, and the Lansings "eventually sent us a cease-and-desist [letter]," said Tim League, who founded the Rolling Roadshow in Austin, Texas, eight years ago. "It's just crazy. If we're doing this event out here, we should have both sides of the field, so people can spread out and enjoy it."

"We turned it down because we don't believe in commercialization," Betty Boeckenstedt, sister of house/landowner Don Lansing, said as she closed up the Field of Dreams Movie Site gift shop before the program began. "Of course, there was no Kevin Costner when we were approached, but we don't do any events. It's not our vision."

The Field of Dreams Movie Site may not have been officially involved, but that didn't stop Costner, 51, from hanging out on the infield for more than an hour, giving batting tips to kids and running the bases with them, sharing his prime moment of nostalgia.

Costner's star power no doubt had much to do with the large crowd, which skewed more female than male (even though "Field of Dreams" is one of the rare movies that make grown men cry) and ranged from boys in baseball uniforms scooping commemorative gravel into water bottles to a sizable gray-haired contingent. It wasn't your standard rock 'n' roll crowd, but Costner used the occasion as a coming-out party for his still-unnamed band.

His 75-minute set preceded the screening, and he received a hero's welcome as he walked through the audience wearing a goatee, sunglasses, a baseball cap (which he eventually turned backward), blue jeans and a "Field of Dreams" gray T-shirt under an unbuttoned dark shirt.

"This was the first time it felt right to come back," Costner told the crowd before getting to the business at hand. "Let's break the mystery of what you think you're going to hear right now. Fair enough?"

The six-piece band -- with Costner on acoustic guitar, two other electric guitarists, a bassist, drummer and fiddle player -- kicked into a rootsy rock set flavored by John Mellencamp with sprinklings of Garth Brooks and your basic well-seasoned bar band.

"This next song is about the awesome promise of the United States," Costner said to introduce "Promised Land," which boasted a would-be sing-along chorus ("Once this was the promised land") and his quirkiest lyric of the night: "Dog on the front yard, he's looking mighty good/I wouldn't eat him, but my neighbor would."

Otherwise, Costner hadn't sent his lyrics through the anti-cliche filter ("The wheels keep spinnin' round and round" for starters). His vocals were gruff yet a bit pinched, and his pitch could get wobbly, particularly on his cover of "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance." His gestures and entreaties indicated that he expected more of a dance-party reaction from the lawn-chair set, but he finally got them onto their feet with his closing "Pink Houses"-style cover of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'."

Before the movie was projected -- in 35mm from a truck, indeed feeling magical among those cornfields on a perfect summer's night -- Costner gestured to the empty section of baseball field and said, "When they finally get this settled, I'll come back.")